CHAPTER XIX
THE PURSUIT
"But I shall die," said Arlee. "I shall simply die if I have to go another step upon that creature."
She said it cheerfully, but firmly, a sleepy, sunburned little nomad, sitting cross-legged in the sands, slowly plaiting her honey-colored hair. "Even this," she announced, indicating the slight gesture of braiding, "is agony."
"It's the morning after," said Billy, testing his shoulder with wry grimaces. "It's yesterday's speed—and then this infernally cold night. No wonder we're lame. Why, I have one universal crick wherever I used to have muscles. But let me call your attention to the fact that we are in the wilds of Egypt and that tangerines are hardly a lasting breakfast. Something has to be done."
"Not upon camels," said Arlee fixedly.
"They say it doesn't hurt after an hour or so more."
"I shouldn't live to find out."
"A walk," he suggested, "a slow, swaying, gently undulating walk——?"
"A long, lingering, agonizing death," the young lady translated. She tossed the curly end of her braid over her shoulder and rose, with sounds of lamentation. "I ought to have known better than to sit down again when I was once up," she confided sadly.
"Just what," inquired her companion, "is your idea for the day? How do you expect to reach Girgeh? It can't be very far away now——"
"Then we'll walk—we'll walk," she emphasized, "and tow those ships of the desert after us. That will be bad enough, but better—what's that?"
Like a top, for all his stiffness, Billy spun about to stare where her finger pointed. Over the crest of a hillock, far to the north—yes, something was hurrying their way.
"A man on horseback," said Arlee anxiously. "They can't have traced us, can they, all this way——?"
"Of course not—but we'll take no chances," returned Billy briskly; "no more talk of pedestrian tours now!" and promptly he helped the girl, no longer demurring, into the saddle, and thwacked her camel into arising, just dodging the long, yellow teeth that the resentful beast tried to fasten upon his shoulder.
They started at no soothing walk, but at a hurrying trot.
Worriedly, her delicate brows knitting, "It's absurd, but," said Arlee, "they could have traced us, I suppose, from my telegraphing at that little native station for my trunks to be sent."
"And mine," said Billy. "And from my trying to get my letter of credit cashed."
"That Captain could have telegraphed to all the places down the line to know if we'd been seen——"
"Even if we hadn't wired or tried to get money, our presence alone and our buying food would have aroused talk. I told everybody," the young man continued, "that I was an artist and you were my sister, and that passed all right—but if Kerissen has been making inquiries——"
"I'm desperately glad we didn't go back toward Assiout," she thrust in. "We'd have walked right into some trap of his!"
"Lord knows what we ought to have done! Lord knows what we ought to do now!"
"Just keep on going," she encouraged. "We can't be very far from Girgeh, can we?"
"I don't know," said Billy soberly. "It may be half a day or a whole day more—you remember how vague that old woman was last night...!" Bitterly he added, "And I'm afraid you've got a chump of a guide."
"I've the best one in the world!" she flashed indignantly.
But her assurance brought no solace to the young man's troubled soul. He reflected that they could have taken a train the day before. To be sure, he had not money enough for tickets to Luxor, yet he had enough for two to Girgeh. But Arlee had shrunk from entering a train in her dishevelled costume, fearful of watching eyes and gossiping tongues, and had advised riding on to Girgeh, where shops and banks would help them, and he had yielded apparently to her desires, but in reality to his own secret self that clung to every joyful contraband moment of this magic time with her. Sincerely he had thought their danger ended.... But those trailing horsemen—"Brute!" he raged dumbly at himself. "Dolt! Idiot!"
Anxiously Billy looked at Arlee. It was an ordeal of a ride.
They had ridden on in silence, occasionally glancing back over their shoulders. At last Arlee said, quietly, "Do you see anything—over there—to the left?"
Billy had been seeing it for fifteen minutes.
"Another horseman, isn't it?" he carelessly suggested.
"He seems to be riding the same way we are."
"Well, we've no monopoly of travel in this region."
She answered, after a moment, "There's another close behind him. I just saw him on top of a little hill. I suppose they can see us?"
"Probably." Billy's face was grave. If they continued their winding path in from the desert to the intervening hills that shut them from the Nile valley, and the horsemen continued their course along the base of those hills, they would soon meet.
"Do you mind speeding up a little?" he asked. "I'd rather like to cross to the Nile ahead of that gentry."
But as they speeded up the pursuers did the same, and from mere dots they grew to tiny figures, clearly discernible, furiously galloping over the sands.
Billy thought hard about his cartridges, wishing he had more in his clothes. When he had left the hotel that Tuesday evening he had thrust the loaded revolver in his pocket, but he had already discharged it twice at the beginning of their flight.... And then he startlingly reflected that the Captain could easily cause their arrest for stealing those camels, and wild and dreadful thoughts of native jails and mixed tribunals darted into his harassed and anxious mind. As a long ridge of sand intervened between them and their pursuers he made a sudden decision.
"Let's turn off," he said quickly, and from the little winding path, edging southeast, they struck directly south over the trackless sand.
"You see, they'll expect us to make a railroad station as soon as possible," he explained, "and they are probably trying to nab us on the way to it—if those men have anything to do with us at all." He said nothing about his vivid fear of arrest for the camels and the tool such an arrest would be for Kerissen's designs. He merely added, "I think we'd better try to give them the slip and steer clear of all the little native joints until we get to Girgeh, which is big enough to give us some protection. There must be an English something-or-other there.... I really think we ought to go as fast as we can now, and when the way is clear, hurry across the hills into the Nile valley."
But the way did not become clear. Disconcerted by that unexpected dash off the path, and reduced for a time to mere dots again, the horsemen, three in a row now, hung persistently upon their left flank, keeping a parallel course between them and the hills.
The day had dawned with a promise of sultry heat, and as the sun rose higher and higher in the heavens the heat grew more and more intolerable to their ill-protected heads and thirsty tongues. The gaiety of yesterday was gone; the enchantment had vanished from the waste spaces, and the desert was less a friend now than an enemy. Chokingly the dust rose about them, and glaringly the gold of the burning sands beat back the glare of the down-pouring sun. From such a heat the landscape seemed to shrink and veiled itself with a faint and swimming haze.
By noon the flask of water in Billy's pocket was empty. By noon their mouths were parched and their skins burning. And still on their left there hung the hounding dots, like prowling jackals.
Anxiously Billy looked at Arlee. This was an ordeal of a ride that tried the stuff the girl was made of. She was no princess of mystery now, crossing the moonlit sands; she was no gossamer wraith of a girl miraculously with him for a time; she was a very hot and human companion, worried and tired, shutting her dry mouth over any word of complaint, smiling pluckily at him with dusty lips from the shrouding hood of her veil. She was completely and thoroughly a brick.
And Billy's heart ached for her, even while his spirit exulted in her spirit.
"Beastly hot, isn't it?" he gasped, pulling his insufficient cap down over his bloodshot eyes.
Valiantly she smiled. "What's a little—heat?" came joltingly back.
"And rough going."
"What's a little—roughness?"
There wasn't any word good enough for her. There wasn't any word good enough to describe such superhuman courage and sweetness. Billy had credited all beauties with being spoiled. All he had known had been distinctly spoiled, even the near-beauties, and the not-so-near ones, yet here was the most radiantly lovely girl he had ever seen behaving like an angel of grit.
He didn't quite know what else he expected her to do—have hysterics, perhaps, or weep, or reproach him for having taken a wrong way and elected a rash course. He had known that this girl could be a very minx when piqued. But in the graver crises of life she proved herself a thoroughbred. She would go till she dropped and never whimper.
He thought of all she must have been through in that horrible palace, and he marvelled at the swiftness with which her spirit had reverted to blitheness again. The disaster, that might have been so stunning, so irremediable, had passed over her head like lightning that had not struck.... Even the horror of it had seemed yesterday to fade in her like the horror of an evil dream. That was what it had been to her—an evil dream. She was so young, so much of her was still a child, that the full terror had not touched her.
They had come to a road at last, a road which seemed to be leading in from the desert very gradually to the hills upon their left, and it seemed to Billy that it must be a caravan road to Girgeh, and he felt themselves upon the right track. They must keep their lead, and when that lead seemed sufficient, they must put on all possible speed to make the crossing through the hills into the Nile valley ahead of their pursuers. Once more he stirred their lagging camels into a jogging trot....
It was around the middle of the afternoon now, and it had been noon since their tongues had tasted water. Arlee felt her mouth parched and her tongue dry and curling; her skin was feverishly hot; her whole body burned and ached, and her head was giddy with the heat and the hunger. But she thought how little a thing it was to be hot and hungry and tired—when one was free. And she drew the silver shawl closer over her head and wrapped the silken tunic of her frock about her scorching shoulders, and clung tight to the pommel of her big saddle as her beast pounded on and on in his lurching stride.
It had been some time since they had seen the dots, and now the road ahead of them, like the former path they had abandoned, was turning more and more to the left, winding in and out the low and broken foothills, and as they followed its course with increasing security, Billy began to tell himself that their fears had been unfounded and the alarming horsemen were merely following their own route south.
And then he heard a whistle.
A prescience of danger shot through him. His fears returned a hundredfold. Sharply he scanned the way about them, but nothing was in sight. The whistle was not repeated; he could have imagined that he dreamed it. An utter stillness possessed the wilderness.
And then around the corner of a jutting rock ahead of them a horseman trotted, a big black man on a gray horse, and reined in, waiting, facing them. Arlee gave a choking cry.
"The eunuch!" she gasped out.
Behind them Billy flung a lightning glance, and over the heads of the dunes two more riders appeared, converging down upon them from the rear. Three in sight—how many more behind the rocks?
Desperately Billy gripped his bridle rope, and with a wrenching pull and a whack of his guiding stick he turned his camel sharply to the left, snatching at Arlee's bridle rope as the beasts bumped against each other in their surprise.
"Quick—this way," Billy commanded, and with the left hand clutching the girl's rope, with the right he wielded the stick furiously. Out over the sand both camels plunged, goaded into wild speed by such violent measures, and a cheated yell broke from the horsemen and the outcries of pursuit.
While rage at such unreason lasted the camels went like mad, but such speed could not be for long. They had been hard ridden for two days and they were nearly spent. The horsemen behind had drawn together and hung on their trail like three hounds, riding cautiously in the rear, but easily keeping the distance. It occurred to Billy that these pursuers could have changed horses on the way, and must inevitably tire them out. And then?
On and on he beat his poor beasts, racing toward the hills that, just ahead of them, rose sharply from the broken ground, seeking among them some fortress of rocks for a defiant stand.
A tug on the bridle rope nearly jerked it from his hand. Arlee's camel had stumbled; the poor thing was lurching wearily.
"He can't go—any more," the girl cried out pitifully. "He—he's sobbing. Don't beat him—I won't have him beaten!"
"We must get there," he called back, waving at the cliff-like rocks.
"Then go—on foot. I could—run faster."
"No, you couldn't," he shouted fiercely back.
She flared. "Don't you hit him again!"
The maddening absurdity of the quarrel in the face of hostile Africa filled Billy with the futile fury of exasperation. He ground his teeth, glowering at her, and wound her halter rope about his smarting hand. All his hope was concentrated upon the necessity of winning to that rocky shelter before their pursuers overtook them. To him the camels were nothing in the face of such necessity.
They were going slower and slower; his blows had no avail now on either beast. They plodded on. He turned suddenly in his saddle and saw the three riders spreading fan-shape around them, the one in the center nearest. He whipped out his gun and fired at the horse.
His own motion made the ball fly wild, but the horseman drew up instantly, and the other edged discreetly away. And in the ensuing moments the two fugitives gained the base of those cliff-like hills and perceived the dark oblong of a cave mouth.
Down from their exhausted camels they flung themselves, and hand in hand raced to the entrance of the cave. Coolness and blackness received them. Their eyes discovered nothing of the tunnel-like interior.
Putting Arlee some distance within, Billy went to the mouth and stood, his gun in his hand, peering watchfully out. He saw the horsemen draw together for a parley, then one remained on guard while the others circled on separate ways beyond his range of sight. His fear was that one of them might steal alongside the cave and leap unexpectedly into its very mouth upon him, so with taut nerves he crouched expectant.
Behind him Arlee gave a sudden shriek.
"Billy went to the mouth, peering watchfully out"
CHAPTER XX
A FRIEND IN NEED
He whirled. "I'll fire!" he warned, staring into the dark, but his eyes, dazed with the sun, discerned nothing, and in utter ignorance he faced the black possibilities.
"A man—a hand——" Arlee gasped incoherently.
"Good Lord, what is it?" said a voice so near at hand that both were startled.
"Burroughs!" ejaculated Billy. "Is it you—Burroughs?"
"Yes, it's I, Burroughs," the owner of the voice retorted irritably. "And who the deuce are you?"
"Hill—Billy B. Hill," came the jubilant answer, and "Billy be damned!" said the astonished voice, with sudden joviality, and a dark shape strode up to them. "What on earth are you doing here? And what about that firing? Think I was a robber bold?"
"Well, there are three robber sneaks outside that we are hiding from, so I wasn't sure.... Great Cæsar, old scout, but I'm glad to see you! That puts us out of the woods at last.... It's the excavator friend," he added, turning to Arlee. "Burroughs, I present you to Miss Beecher. She and I have been having a thoroughly impossible adventure."
"Let's have a little light upon these introductions," returned the excavator, and a click was heard, and a light jumped out overhead, flooding the tunnel-like place with brightness. In its beams the three stood staring queerly at each other.
Arlee saw a slim, wiry young American, in rough khaki clothes stained with work, a browned, unshaven young man with sleepy looking eyes and a mouth like a steel trap.
What the excavator saw was more surprising. There was his friend Billy, whom two weeks before he had seen off on a Nile steamer returning to Cairo, in tropic splendor of white serge and Panama hat, now a scarlet spectacle of sunburn and dirt, in most disgraceful tweeds, and beside him what Burroughs took to be a child in tatterdemalion white, a silky, fluttering white, which even his untrained observation knew was hardly elected for desert wear. The little girl's hair was hanging tangled over her shoulders, and was much the color of the sand with which her face was coated, and underneath that coating he saw that she was red as a peony with sun and wind. They were a startling pair.
Gravely, with unchanging eyes, he acknowledged the introduction, and then, "What's this about robbers?" he went on. "What kind of a yarn are you putting over?"
"Nothing I want put over on the general public." Billy was thinking very hard. "You're going to be our salvation, Burroughs, but even to you—well, I'll put it briefly. We were having a desert ride and some Turkish fellows who have annoyed her before chased us. There are our camels, just outside. And you can see one of the fellows on horseback keeping watch. The others are somewhere about.... And now, for heaven's sake, get us a drink of water."
Burroughs walked to the door of the tomb and looked out an instant, then he turned and went toward the back, returning with a small native jar full of water.
"I've no glass, but if you can manage this——?" he said to Arlee, and she clutched the cool pottery with two hot little hands and, murmuring a quick affirmative, she put it to her lips.
Then she held it out to Billy.
"I suppose—we mustn't—-drink as much as we want."
"I couldn't," said Billy, after a grateful swallowing. "I'd drain the Nile.... Got a camp here?"
"Yes. You'd have seen my men any other time of day, but we knocked off a while out of the sun," Burroughs explained. "I've rigged up this tomb as living quarters while I'm here. Now what do you want me to do? Would you like a guard?"
"We'd like a guard and a bath and cold cream," said Billy joyfully. "And then we'd like dinner and donkeys."
Burroughs grunted.
"Umph—I should say you'd one donkey already in your party—careering around the desert with a little girl like this," he vouchsafed, and Arlee's eyes widened at his brusque nod at her. She was staring about her now with a curious interest, for all her aching tiredness, gazing wonderingly at the dazzling white walls with their strange and brilliant paintings. She saw they were in a long, deep chamber, from which other openings led to unimagined deeps.
"I guess you never were in a place like this before?" Burroughs inquired, and she shook her head dumbly, feeling suddenly too spent for words.
"Can she get a rest here?" said Billy anxiously. "We've had the devil of a ride."
"The place is all hers," returned Burroughs. "I'll send you some food and cold cream—you mustn't wash that sunburn, you know, or you'll be a sorry girl to-morrow—and then you can rest as long as you like. How much of a hurry are you in?" he added to Billy.
"Well, we want to take a train to Luxor to-night. I suppose Girgeh's the next station?"
"You suppose? You are at sea—where did you start from, anyway?" But hastily Burroughs sped from that inquisitive question. "Balliana is your next station," he reported. "You've all the time you want, and I'll take you over myself. Now make yourself as comfortable as you can," he added to Arlee, handing her a big jar of cold cream and lugging forward an armful of rugs. "I'll be back with some food in a jiffy."
"You're very kind," Arlee spoke stanchly, but as soon as the two men stepped from the tomb, she seemed to wilt down into the rugs and lay there, too tired to stir.
Outside Burroughs blew sharply on a whistle, and from the mouth of another cave a file of black boys in ragged robes made a straggling appearance. Burroughs gave orders which resulted in a kindling of fire and the opening of boxes, and then he walked back to where Billy was surveying the weary camels. At a distance, like an equestrian statue, the watching horseman was standing. Burroughs stared hard at the distant Nubian, then stared harder at Billy.
"This is wonderful luck," Billy said to him, very soberly. "I didn't think of you as nearer than Thebes."
"We just heard of some fresh finds here, so I'm combing over the tombs.... But you—it's none of my business, Billy, but what in hell are you doing racing over Egypt with a ten-year old kid?"
"Ten-year-old—Great Cæsar, man, that's a real girl! She's grown up! She's old enough to vote—or nearly."
Burroughs stared harder than ever.
Then, "I shouldn't call that an extenuating circumstance," he mentioned wryly.
"Extenuating nothing! Look here, let me——"
"You needn't tell me anything, you know," Burroughs suggested in great indifference.
"Oh, shut up!" Billy spoke with deep disgust. "You've got to help us out of this and then forget the whole business." He paused a moment; then, "Miss Beecher made the mistake of taking a rash ride with me. She was traveling alone, to meet some friends, to Luxor—and the indiscretion is entirely mine, you understand. I got her into it. And then, as I said, a Turkish fellow, that had been making himself objectionable by following her, got his men out after us and chased us down here. Her trunks have gone on to Luxor where those friends are, and we have to find some presentable wraps for her and get her to the first train. Verstehen?"
"Grasped—and forgotten," said his friend laconically. Just for an instant his sleepy gaze touched Billy's rugged face, then fell casually away. "I suppose any comments that occur to me are superfluous?" he pleasantly observed.
"Completely.... And, Lord Harry, but I'm glad to see you!"
"Same here." Burroughs gave Billy's arm a friendly grip and Billy spun fiercely about on him. "Don't you do that again!" he warned. "Take the other one. That's got a—a scratch."
"A scratch? One of those fellows wing you out there? Let me have a look——"
"No, it's all right—it's nothing——"
"Let me see, you old chump——"
"It's all right, I tell you. It's been taken care of—it's just a relic of Cairo."
"Cairo!" Slowly Burroughs let fall the hand he had laid upon Billy's arm. "You do seem to be having a lively trip," he commented, grinning. "Here, hurry up, you rascals, hurry up with that big jug."
Taking the large jar from them, he returned to the tomb, stopping abruptly at sight of Arlee's weary abandon. She half sat up, a frail, exhausted little figure, whose grace was strangely appealing through all her sandy dishevelment.
"Some water—for washing," he stammered.
"You're very thoughtful."
"I'll have to beg your pardon," he blurted, for Burroughs was no squire of dames. "I thought you were a little girl and spoke to you as if——"
"It's just the hairpins that make the difference, isn't it?" said Arlee, with a whimsical smile. "I don't suppose you have any of those in camp that I could borrow?"
He shook his head regretfully. Then his brain seized upon the problem. "Bent wires?" he suggested. "I might try——"
"Do," she besought. "I'll be grateful forever."
He withdrew to make the attempt, and in his place came Billy with a tray of luncheon.
"Just—put it down," Arlee said faintly. "I'll eat—by and by."
Worriedly Billy looked down on the girl. Her eyes closed. Excitement had ebbed, leaving her like some spent castaway on the shores. He dropped on his knees beside her, dipping a clean handkerchief in the jar of cold cream.
"Just let me get this off," he said quietly. "You'll feel better."
Like a child she submitted, lying with closed eyes while with anxious care he took the sand from her delicate, burning skin. He did the same for her listless hands; he brushed back her hair and put water on her temples; he dabbed more cold cream tenderly on the pathetic little blisters on her lips.
"I'm—all right." The blue eyes looked suddenly up at him with a clear smile. "I'm—just resting."
"And now you'll eat a bit?"
Obediently she took the sandwich he made for her, and lifted her head to drink the cup of tea.
"I'm a—nuisance," she murmured.
"You're a brick!" he gave back, with muffled intensity. "You're a perfect brick!"
Then he backed hastily out of her presence, for fear his stumbling tongue would betray him—or his clumsy, longing hands—or his foolish eyes. He felt choking with the tenderness he must not express. He ached with his Big Brother pity for her, and with his longing for her, which wasn't in the least Big Brotherly, and with all the queer, bewildering jumble of emotion that she had power to wake in him.
Very silently he returned to Burroughs, and when he had made a trifle of a toilet and eaten far from a trifle of lunch, the two young men stretched themselves out in the shade, just beyond the entrance of the tomb, conversing in low tones, while around them the labor song of Burroughs' workmen rose and fell in unvarying monotony, as from a nearby hole they carried out baskets of sand upon their heads and poured the contents upon the heap where the patient sifters were at work.
Burroughs talked of his work, the only subject of which he was capable of long and sustained conversation. He dilated upon a rare find of some blue-green tiles of the time of King Tjeser, a third dynasty monarch, and a mummy case of one of the court of King Pepi, of the sixth dynasty, "about 3300 b.c.," he translated for Billy, and then suddenly he saw that Billy's eyes were absent and Billy's pipe was out.
In sudden silence he knocked out the ashes from his own pipe and slowly refilled it. "Congratulations," he ejaculated, and at Billy's slow stare he jerked his head back toward the tomb. "I say, congratulations, old man."
"Oh!" Billy became ludicrously occupied with the dead pipe.
"Nothing doing," he returned decidedly.
"No? ... I thought——"
"You sounded as if you had been thinking. Don't do it again."
"And also I had been remembering," said Burroughs, with caustic emphasis, "knowing that in the past wherever youth and beauty was concerned——"
So successfully had that past been sponged from Billy's concentrated heart, so utterly had other youth and beauty ceased to exist for him, that he greeted the reminder with belligerent unwelcome.
"I tell you it was all an accident," he retorted irritably. "There's nothing more to it.... Hello, our horseman is coming this way again!"
Grateful for the interruption to this ticklish excursion into his sacred emotions, he jumped to his feet and went out to meet the man who was riding slowly toward them, the two others in his train. Burroughs went with him, and a brief parley followed.
"He says," Burroughs translated, "that these are his camels and he is going to take them away. He says you stole them from him at Assiout."
"That's right," Billy confirmed easily. "He can have 'em," and Burroughs, vouchsafing no comment on this curious development, gave the message to the Nubian. Then he turned again to Billy. "He wants: the money for their hire."
"For their——! Of all the dad-blasted, iron-clad cheek! You just tell him for me that he'll get his 'hire' all right if he hangs around me. Tell him I'll have him arrested for molesting and robbing travelers; and tell him to tell his master that if he shows his head near an English girl again I'll have him hanged as high as Haman—and shot to pieces while he swings! The infernal scoundrel——"
Whatever work Burroughs made of this translation it sent the sullen, inscrutable-looking fellow off in silence, his followers leading the recovered camels.
"And may that be the last of them," said Billy B. Hill, in fervent thanksgiving. "Except Kerissen. I've got to meet him again—just once."
Perhaps it was the hairpins. Perhaps it was the bathed face and the sleep-brightened eyes and the rearranged gown. But certainly Burroughs stared in amazement at the slim little figure that issued from the entrance, and a queer, a very queer confusion seized upon him. Not even outrageous sunburn and pathetic blisters could hide Arlee's young loveliness. They only added an utterly upsetting tenderness to the beholder, and a most dangerous compassion.
And just as each man is smitten with madness after the manner of his kind, so Burroughs, the taciturn, was struck into amazing volubility. As they sat about a cracker box of a table at an early supper, he became a perfect fount of information, pouring out to this girl an account of his diggings that would have astounded any of his intimates, and would surely have amazed Billy B. Hill if that young man had been in a condition to notice his friend's performances. But he was wrapped in a personal gloom that had descended on him like a cloud of unreason. The escapade was nearly over. The little girl comrade was gone, the little girl whose face he had so tenderly scrubbed of its grimy sand. A very self-possessed young lady was sitting beside him, drinking her coffee, an utterly lovely and gracious young lady—but unfathomably remote—elusive....
Perhaps, again, it was the hairpins.
Off to town on donkey back the three Americans rode slowly, a native escort filing after, and there in town the bazaars yielded a long pongee dust coat and a straw hat and a white veil, "to escape detection," Arlee gaily said, and a satchel which she filled with mysterious purchases, and then, clad once more in the semblance of her traveling world, safe and sound and undiscovered, she stood upon the station platform, awaiting the train to Luxor.
Beside her, two very quiet young men responded but feebly to the flow of spirits that had amazingly succeeded her exhaustion. Burroughs was suddenly suffering from a depression most unfamiliar to his practical mind, which caused him to moon about his work for days and made his depleted jar of cold cream a wincing memory, and Billy was increasingly glum.
It was all over now. The girl, who for two winged days had been so magically his gypsy comrade, was returning to her own world, the world in which he played so infinitesimal a part. For very pride's sake now he could never force himself upon her ... as he might before ...
He stared down at her eagerly, hopefully, for a sign of regret at the ending of this strange companionship, much as a big Newfoundland might watch for a caress from a cherished but tyrannic hand, but not a scrap of regret was evidenced. She was as blithe as a cricket. Her only pang was for discovery.
"You're sure," she murmured as Burroughs left them to interview the station clerk, "you're sure they'll never know?"
"I'm positive," he stolidly responded. "Just stick to your story."
"The Evershams won't question—they are never interested in other people," she mused, with thankfulness. "But Mr. Falconer——"
"Won't have a doubt," said Billy firmly. His gloom closed in thickly about him.
It was a local, a train of corridor compartments. In one, marked "Ladies Alone," Arlee was ensconced, with an Englishwoman and her maid, and two pleasant German women, and in another Billy B. Hill sat opposite some young Copts and lighted pipe after pipe. When the train started out on the High Bridge across the Nile to the eastern bank, he came out in the corridor to look out the wide glass windows there, and found Arlee beside him.
"How do you do?" she said brightly. "How nice to meet accidentally like this—you see, I'm rehearsing my story," she added under her breath.
"Let's see if you have it straight," he told her.
"I arrive on a local which left Cairo this morning.... Did I come alone?"
"You'd better invent some nice traveling friend——"
She shook her head in flat refusal. "I won't. I'm not equal to inventing anything. It's bad enough now to—to tell the necessary lies I have to." The brightness left her face looking suddenly wan and sorry. "I suppose it's part of my—punishment—for my dreadful folly," she said in a low tone.
"It's just part of the coin the world has to be paid in for its conventions," Billy quickly retorted. "Don't let it worry you like that—in a day no one will think to question you."
"I know—but—it's having the memory always there. Always knowing that there is something I can't be honest about—something secret and dreadful——"
She was staring unseeingly out the window, her soft lips twitching.
"The Egyptians were a most sensible people," said Billy. "They drew up a list of commandments against the forty-two cardinal sins, and one of them was this, 'Thou shalt not consume thy heart.' That is a religious law against regret—vain, unprofitable, morbid, devastating regret. And you must take that law for your own."
"Th—thank you." The low voice was suspiciously wavery. "I—you see, I haven't had time to think about it till just now—we've been going so fast——"
"And the best thing that could have happened. And now that you have the time to think, you mustn't think weakly. It was just a nightmare. And it's over."
"Just a nightmare.... And it's over," she repeated. Her eyes lifted to Billy's in a look of ineffable softness and wonder. "It's over—because you came."
"I want you to forget that." The young man spoke with cold curtness in his effort to combat the wild temptation of that moment. "I only did what anyone else in my place would have done—to have accomplished it is all the gratitude I want. Please don't speak of it to me again. You must forget about it."
"Forget—as if I could help being grateful as long as I live!"
"But I don't want you to be grateful. It—it's obnoxious to me!"
She was as blankly hurt as a slapped child. Then she looked away, a little pulse in her throat beating fast. "Then I won't—try to thank you," she answered in a very small voice, and stared harder and harder out the window.
Billy felt that he had accomplished a tremendous stride. "A feeling of obligation kills a friendship," he told her didactically, "and I want you to be really my friend."
"I am." Her voice was distinct, though queerly lack-luster. And she did not look at him again.
He went on: "The Evershams will be in on the boat about seven. From the station I'll take you straight to the boat, where your stateroom is surely being kept for you. Then to-morrow your trunks will arrive from Cook's, and by the time you are through resting, you will be ready to sally out and meet the world.... I hope my own trunk will make its appearance, too," he added. "I telegraphed the hotel to pack my things and send them on."
She made no comment on the obvious haste with which he had left Cairo. She said slowly, "I want to do a little mathematics now. What is the shocking sum I owe you?"
He shut his lips in an obstinate line. After a moment she added, "I can't take that, you know."
It struck him as a trifle ludicrous that dollars were so important among all the rest, but unwillingly enough he understood.
"Won't you just let it stand as it is?" he said under his breath. "Let me have the whole thing—please."
"I can't."
"You mean you won't?"
"I can't," she repeated inflexibly, and then, with a childish flash, "Since you dislike me to feel grateful—I should think you would be glad to let me reduce the debt."
"All right." He spoke gruffly. "Then you owe me what you spent just now and what your railroad ticket cost. Not a cent more. For what went before I am absolutely responsible, and I decline to let you pay my debts."
This time he was inflexible. She repeated, with a spark of resentment, "It's not fair to let you pay so much——"
"It was my adventure," said Billy firmly.
She said, "Very well," in a voice that puzzled him. He felt she was annoyed. And he realized more than ever that he could never take advantage of her indebtedness to make her pay with her companionship. It was becoming a queer tangle.... He felt they had suddenly slipped out of tune.... She seemed to be escaping him—withdrawing ...
He wondered, very unhappily, with no fine glow of altruism at all, if he had rescued her for another man. Those things happened, they happened with dismal frequency. Billy distinctly recalled the experience of a college friend who had carried a girl out of a burning hotel, to have her wildly embrace an unstirring youth below. Yes, such things happened. But he had never contemplated having anything like that happen to him.
He contemplated it now, however, contemplated it long and bitterly, when Arlee had gone back to her compartment and he sat silent in his beside the chattering Copts while the train rattled on and on. There would be three days at Luxor before the boat proceeded upon its southern journey. And then——
Three days.... Three miserable, paltry, insufficient days, blighted by the chaperoning Evershams.... Frantically he hoped against his dark foreboding that one menace at least might be averted—that by now Luxor would have ceased to shelter a certain sandy-haired young Englishman.
CHAPTER XXI
CROSS PURPOSES
Luxor was warm and drowsy with afternoon sun. Motionless the fronds of the tall palms along the water front; motionless the columns of the temple reflected in the blue Nile. Even the almost continuous commotion of the landing stage was stilled.
The two big Nile steamers, of rival lines, lay quietly at rest, emptied of their tourists, and on the embankment the dragomans, the donkey boys, the innumerable venders, were lounging in the shade at dominoes or dice.
In the big white hotels facing the river many drawn blinds spoke of napping travelers, and in the shade of the garden of the Grand other travelers were whiling away the listless inertia of the hour before tea.
"I suppose it's quite too early?" murmured a girl at one of the tables, in the shade of a big acacia. Her companion, fussing with a pastel sketch, answered absently, without looking up, "Oh, quite," and then with a note of brisker attention, "I thought we were waiting for Robert?"
"Do you think he'll be back? It's such a trip to the Tombs of the Kings, you know!"
"To be sure he'll be back!" Miss Falconer spoke with asperity. "And why he wanted to go over it again—it's odd you didn't care to go, too, Claire," she added, most inconsequently. "It was such an excellent opportunity—and you had already spoken of wishing to go again."
"But not so exhaustively. They are doing the entire programme. I only wanted some particular things."
"You could have done them."
"And it was hot."
"It must have been just as hot in the bazaars with Mr. Hill."
"Was it?"
This was purposeful vagueness and Miss Falconer's crayon snapped. She made a sound of annoyance, then began gathering her sketching things tidily together. Presently, "He's rather an agreeable person, that young American, after all," she cannily observed.
"Why, after all?" Lady Claire was implacably aloof.
"Well, first impressions, you know——"
"My first impressions of Mr. Hill were very delightful." The English girl laughed softly, her eyes full of reminiscent amusement. "He was a deus ex machina to me—I quite jumped at him, I assure you!"
"You don't have to assure me!" was the elder lady's unspoken comment. She had been in a state of chronic irritation, ever since that Friday noon when Billy B. Hill's tall figure had appeared in the hotel dining room. And hurrying Claire away from the conversation he was promptly evoking, she had encountered Arlee Beecher and the Evershams streaming with the other passengers from their boat to see the temple of Luxor, a wonderfully gay and excited Arlee, so radiant in the happiness of her own safe world again that she was bright gladness incarnate.... Instantly Robert had reverted to his alarming infatuation ... and Lady Claire had most shamelessly welcomed the American. It was all unspeakably annoying....
Aloud Miss Falconer observed, "I wonder what brought Mr. Hill back to the Nile."
"I wonder," said Lady Claire pleasantly. "But it makes it very nice for us, doesn't it?" she continued amiably. "He knows quite everything about temples."
"And particularly nice for Miss Beecher—though I can't say she is treating him very well. However, that may be their way. 'Romance apart from results,' was, I believe, his phrase."
Lady Claire was silent. But not overlong. "You really think——?" she suggested tranquilly.
"He came on the same train."
"Coincidence. He mentioned he did not see her in the train till Balliana."
"Umph!" Miss Falconer drew out of her bag the especial knitting which she reserved for the Sabbath, and her fingers flew with expressive spirit. "It's scandalous," she said at length. "Girls gadding about the face of the earth—picking up chaperons when they remember them."
"It's their way, you know."
"Oh, yes, it's their way. And their men seem to like it. Mr. Hill didn't seem to consider it even unusual.... But as I said, he's hardly a judge," Miss Falconer went on unsparingly. "The man's bewitched. He never takes his eyes off her."
"I'm sure I don't blame him." Lady Claire's tone was most successfully admiring. "She's too wonderful, isn't she, with those great blue eyes and that astonishing hair! I'm sure Robert is bewitched, too!"
"Nonsense!" But Miss Falconer's tone was too vigorous, betraying the effort to rout a palpable enemy. "What nonsense!" she repeated. "He's civil—naturally—when you haven't a moment for him. The boy has pride. Too much." The knitting needles clicked warningly.
"Civil!" The girl's low laughter was mocking. "Dear Miss Falconer, you are such an euphuist!"
Miss Falconer looked up, a trifle startled. Her young charge was more than a match for her in irony, but the elder lady did not lack for solid perseverance, and she charged on undeterred.
"Of course the girl's pretty—too pretty. And Robert's a man—he has eyes in his head and likes to please them. And she knows who he is and draws him on."
"I don't think Miss Beecher cares a twopence who Robert is," said Lady Claire honestly. "When I told her he was going to stand for Roxham she answered that she had a very poor opinion of M.P.s—from reading Mrs. Ward. I can't quite see what she meant—but as for her drawing him on, a moment ago, dear, you were accusing her of luring Mr. Hill back from Cairo."
"I said he followed. I daresay she lured, too. The second string——"
"Then it's quite nice of me, isn't it, to carry off her second string to the bazaars and prevent her playing him against Robert!"
Lady Claire laughed mischievously, in a flight of daring so foreign to her usual reticence that Miss Falconer grimly perceived that she was changed indeed. She thought helplessly that it was a great pity that young people couldn't be treated as the children they were—smacked and made to do what was best for them.
"And after all this dreadful gossiping how can we face our guests at tea?" the girl continued in mock chiding.
"If they are much later we shall not be facing them at all," the older woman declared. "I shall certainly have my tea at the proper time."
The sight of an Arab servant with a tray of dishes had stirred her to this declaration, and promptly she gave her order. In the middle of it, "I'm always late!" said a merry voice, and little Miss Beecher and Falconer were standing on the grass beside them.
"This time we had no following engagement," said Miss Falconer, unpleasantly reminiscent of another tea time in Cairo, ten days before, but even with her resentment of this American girl's intrusion into her long-cherished plans, she could not prevent the softening of her regard as she gazed upon her.
"You don't look as if you had been riding very hard at the Tombs of the Kings," she observed, in reluctant admiration.
"Oh, but we have! We did quite a lot of Tombs—not anything like thoroughly, of course!—and then we rode back early and made ourselves tidy for your tea party," Arlee blithely explained, and Miss Falconer perceived that her brother Robert had returned to the hotel without seeking them out, had arrayed himself in fresh white flannels and returned to the boat to escort Miss Beecher across the road into the hotel garden.
Absently she sighed. Her eyes fell away from the peach-blossom prettiness of Arlee's lovely face to the subtle simplicity of her white frock of loosely woven silk, and she wondered if that heavy embroidery meant money—or merely spending money. And then she looked across at Lady Claire, and sighed again for her dream of an aristocratic alliance.
"Mrs. Eversham—?" she thought to inquire.
"They're having the vicar—or is it the rector?—to tea. They asked him this morning before your message came," Arlee explained. She did not explain that the vicar, or the rector, had imagined, in accepting, that she, too, was to be of that tea party on the boat and was even now inquiring zealously of her of the Evershams.
"Here's Mr. Hill," said Lady Claire.
Miss Falconer stirred; there was room for the fifth chair between her and Arlee. Lady Claire also stirred; there was room between her and Robert Falconer. And there Billy B. Hill seated himself after a general exchange of greetings.
"How were the bazaars?" said Arlee gaily across the table.
"You mean the department store of Mr. Isaac Cohen," Billy laughed back. "They are all under him, you know."
"Not really!" Falconer exclaimed, in disillusionment. "It rather takes it out, doesn't it, to know it is so commercialized."
"What did you expect—it is the twentieth century," Miss Falconer retorted, putting aside her knitting as the tea things arrived.
"Sometimes it is," said Arlee.
"I think it's more so than ever, here," declared Lady Claire. "Egypt's so frightfully civilized——"
"Not when you're camping in the desert."
Again that funny little smile flitted over Arlee's face; not once did she glance at Billy, but for all her air of unconsciousness he felt that she was subtly sharing her thoughts with him and a quick spark of gladness flashed in him.
Those had been three horrible days for Billy B. Hill.
Friday morning he had been practically a prisoner until his trunks had arrived. He had emerged upon a spectacle of England triumphant—Robert Falconer escorting Arlee to the temple of Luxor. Later that afternoon he had called upon Arlee upon the boat to find Falconer still there, and the Evershams very much so.
Robert Falconer had accompanied him back to the hotel. There was something that he wanted to ask, and he asked it bluntly, but with embarrassment. Had Billy said anything at all to Arlee of that nonsense at the palace?
Here was a contingency for which Billy was not provided. He made no provisions for this with Arlee.
"Have you?" he parried.
"Not a word," said the young Englishman. "We've not mentioned the fellow's filthy name. But I wondered——"
"I did tell her we got worried one night, and tried to get into his palace like a pair of brigands," Billy answered slowly.
"She must have thought us great fools," the sandy-haired young man replied disgustedly. Clearly he felt that Billy had flourished this story before Arlee to appear romantic, and he winced at its absurdity.
"Oh, no—she just thought of it as a lark on our part," Billy went on. "I didn't let her in for the horrible details—I don't think she's likely to mention it to you. Or you to her," he added.
"Rather not." The young Englishman was emphatic. "I'm sorry you said anything about it." Then he looked at Billy, a crinkle of amusement in his eyes. "Rather a sell, you know—what?"
"I should say so!" returned Billy, with a hearty appearance of chagrin, and a laugh cemented the understanding.
That was all between them concerning the escapade.
Billy had raced back to the boat, and secured an earnest fifteen minutes with Arlee, who promised unlimited care, and then forced upon him the wretched sovereigns that she owed. She was feeling desperately spent and tired after her day of excitement, and declared herself unequal to the dance upon the boat that evening. Anxiously Billy had urged her to rest, and he spent a drifting and distracted evening roaming alone in the temple of Luxor listening to the distant music from the boat—thinking of Arlee.... Later he had learned that she remained up for at least two dances with Falconer.
So much for Friday. Saturday had been worse. Arlee had said on Friday night that she would join the passengers in the all-day excursion to the Tombs of the Kings, and Billy had somehow found himself in an arrangement with Lady Claire and Falconer to go with them. Then Arlee had not gone. Mrs. Eversham reported that she had a headache, and Falconer had very promptly dropped out of the party, leaving Billy with Lady Claire upon his hands, and so he went, and he and Lady Claire and the Evershams and about sixty other passengers had a brisk and busy day of it. When he returned just before dinner he saw Arlee, apparently headacheless, upon the deck of the steamer, chatting to Falconer.
That night she had attended the dance at the hotel under Miss Falconer's wing. Billy had danced with her twice, and between times his pride had kept him aloof—she might just have made one sign! But though her bright friendliness was ever responsive; though she was instantly, submissively, ready to accept his invitations or fulfill his requests, he felt that there was something strangely lacking.
The gay spark of her coquetry was gone; she did not tease or play with him; animated as she was in company, when they were alone together a constraint fell upon her.
Miserably he felt that he reminded her of unhappy scenes and that she would be secretly relieved when he was gone.
So now he was absurdly glad to hear her declare, in answer to Lady Claire's questionings, "Oh, but the desert is wonderful! I loved it in spite of——"
"In spite of—?" Lady Claire echoed.
"The sand," said Arlee promptly. But under her lashes, her eyes came, at last, half-scared, to Billy's face.
"But the sand is the desert," Lady Claire was murmuring.
"It's only part of it," Billy took it upon himself to answer. "Space is the biggest part—and then color. And sometimes—heat."
"You spent quite a time on the desert edge with some excavators, didn't you?" said the English girl, and Billy fell into talk with her about his friend's work, and Falconer and his sister engrossed Arlee.
And to-night was the very last night of her stay at Luxor. To-morrow the boat would take her on out of his life—unless he pursued her along the Nile, a foolish, unwanted intruder.... The three days here had all slipped from his clumsy grasp—they seemed to have put a widening distance between them.... He heard Falconer calculating that the boat would touch again at Luxor for the next Friday night. There seemed to be talk of a masked ball....
Billy leaned suddenly across the table.
"You have forgotten it's the best of the moon to-night?" he asked. "You must let me take you to see it on Karnak."
Falconer gave him a very blank look.
"We've already planned for that," said he.
"We'll all go," cried Arlee, with instant pleasantness. "We mustn't miss it for anything."
"You haven't seen the moon on the temple yet?" Billy inquired of Lady Claire in the pause that ensued.
"Only once—four nights ago. But it wasn't full then."
Billy remembered that moon acutely. It had lighted two fugitives across a waste of sand. He saw a little figure swaying rhythmically high upon a camel, a quaint, old-world figure in misty white, with a shimmering silver veil—like Rebecca coming across the desert, he thought oddly. Then he looked up and saw a most modern figure in white across the table, nibbling a cress sandwich, and laughing at some jest of the Englishman's....
With a start he realized that Lady Claire was waiting for an answer.
"I beg your pardon. You asked——?"
"If you had seen the temple in moonlight, Mr. Hill."
"Not Karnak—only Luxor—night before last."
"Only Luxor!" The girl beside him laughed. "How spoiled you are, Mr. Hill! Only Luxor!"
It came to Billy, with the force of revelation, that it was going to be only a great many things for him after this.... Those wild days in the desert had seen to that, with devastating completeness.... Girls were only other girls—and delight in them a lost word. This charming one beside him, with the friendly eyes where a faint shadow of wistfulness underlay the surface brightness, was only Lady Claire....
He wondered if he was going on like this forever. He wondered if he was everlastingly to carry this memory about with him, like a bullet.... Suddenly he felt enraged at himself, at his dumb pain and useless longings, and with a stanch semblance of animation he flung himself into the flow of talk which this pretty English girl was so ready to offer him.